Patient Zero (Coastal Fury Book 33), page 24
I pursed my lips in response.
“You know I’m right,” she continued. “If Agent Holm approached that man, it was because he thought it was safe. It was a mistake, but not one you should blame yourself for.” She slouched back in her chair, matching my posture. “Honestly, even Agent Holm shouldn’t blame himself. Even the doctors we’ve spoken to have no idea what to make of this new rabies. Of course we don’t know anything about it.”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “I guess you’re right.”
“I usually am,” Santina joked. “And I’m right about Agent Holm being okay, too. Petra and Ricky are still alive, right?” She was echoing my own thoughts now, and I smiled.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re right.”
The two of us waited for a long time after that. I nodded off a few times, only to jerk awake. Even though I was exhausted, my brain wouldn’t let me sleep, at least not until I found out how Holm was. One hour melted into two, and then two turned into four. The emergency room never really cleared out, but it did get a little quieter. Santina and I sat in companionable silence for most of it as we waited to hear news of Holm.
I hadn’t noticed that I’d nodded off again until I was suddenly brought crashing back to wakefulness by the sound of my phone ringing. I fumbled as I tried to pull it out of my pocket, my hand shaking slightly.
“What is it?” Santina mumbled in the chair next to me. She’d apparently drifted off as well, her hair splayed over her face as her head rested on my shoulder. “Did something happen?”
“Phone call,” I muttered back as I finally pulled my phone free and got a look at the screen. It was Bonnie calling. I quickly answered and held the phone up to my ear.
“Hello?” I muttered into the receiver.
“Hey, are you okay?” Bonnie asked, her voice laced with concern. “You sound awful.”
“I feel awful,” I noted as I wondered whether I should tell her about Holm. I’d have to tell Diane eventually, but I didn’t want to just yet. Not when I still didn’t have any answers. I definitely didn’t want to tell Bonnie, who would fret and worry and ask a million questions that I just didn’t have answers to. “But it’s fine. Why did you call?”
“I got those samples that you overnighted,” Bonnie explained.
I sat up straighter in surprise and blinked the sleep out of my eyes.
“Really?” I asked. “Already? It’s only—” I paused as I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the time. It was already nearly noon. Apparently, that last nodding off had been less of a doze and more of a full sleep. “Holy crap, Holm.”
“Holm?” Bonnie repeated. “Uh, what about Holm?”
“Nothing,” I lied as I ran a hand through my hair. “I just remembered I was supposed to do something with him this morning. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker so Santina would be able to hear as well.
“You two slacking off?” Bonnie asked teasingly. “While I’m here working my tail off to analyze these samples? By the way, do you want to explain why and how you managed to get me a brain sample? Whose brain is this?”
“Oh, they did send it!?” I asked, actually surprised. I wondered how different the laws regarding this stuff were in Mexico compared to the States.
“They most certainly did,” Bonnie replied. “And it definitely made my job easier. The spinal fluid would have probably been enough, but it would have taken a lot longer, and even then, the results wouldn’t have been as clear-cut as with a brain sample. But I digress. It’s definitely rabies. And I’m not a disease expert, mind you, but even I know how to read a slide and compare notes. So I did a little research, and this is definitely rabies.”
“Why do you sound so uncertain if it’s definitely rabies?” I asked, apprehension filling the pit of my stomach.
“Because, well, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bonnie revealed, her voice airy with what sounded like both worry and awe. “In fact, nobody has ever seen anything like this, Ethan. I ran searches for the results I found and, whatever this stuff is, it’s… new. I couldn’t find any reputable publications on it. No research, no mentions of a strain of rabies that progresses this quickly. It’s actually insane. You stumbled upon something that shouldn’t exist.”
“Well, it does,” I deadpanned. “I can assure you of that. And wait, you said you couldn’t find any reputable publications that mentioned it. Does that mean you found disreputable ones?”
“That’s what I was getting to,” Bonnie revealed, and I could hear her typing away at her computer as she spoke. “Now, normally, I would have discredited something like this because, well, it’s a load of baloney. But the circumstances are just too much to be a coincidence. So listen to this: about a year ago, a researcher at Georgia Tech wrote a study in which he proposed that he had, apparently, come up with a hypothetical cure for rabies. Something about reverse engineering the disease in a way that could function as an effective post-infection inoculation—”
“Bonnie,” I interrupted her softly. “Laymen’s terms, please.”
“This guy thought he could cure rabies by infecting people with rabies,” Bonnie replied flatly, and for a moment, I felt as though my heart had stopped.
“What?” I muttered.
“Yeah,” Bonnie huffed. “It sounds crazy because it is. I mean, in theory, it makes sense, but there are way too many variables that the researcher ignored. And besides, that’s not even how vaccines work. A lot of people think that vaccines are just weaker versions of a disease itself, but it’s really way more complicated than that. It’s a lot to explain, but suffice it to say that this guy was basically using sci-fi pseudo-science to try to invent a cure. Frankly, the stuff he came up with would probably just wind up killing people faster.”
“You don’t say,” I muttered as everything started to fall into place.
“Like I said,” Bonnie murmured, “normally, I would have ignored something this poorly researched, but given what we’re dealing with, I think this paper might actually be connected. So, I decided to call the university, and you know what I found out? The researcher was no longer affiliated with them. They didn’t seem that eager to talk about him at all, to be honest, though they did want to make it clear that he was in no way supported by or connected to them.”
“Sounds like he really burned a bridge with them with his crazy ideas,” I murmured. “It makes sense. When I fought him, he rambled something about people not understanding what a genius he was.”
“You fought him!?” Bonnie explained. “What? When? Did you arrest him?”
“Yesterday.” I sighed with frustration. “And no, he got away. Actually, I completely forgot last night. We have a name. Apparently, he docked his boat under the name Alexander Fleming. I meant to ask Diane to run a search last night, but I crashed as soon as I got to the hotel room.”
“Alexander Fleming?” Bonnie repeated. I could hear the confusion in her tone.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Why?”
“Ethan, that’s… not right,” she replied. “Alexander Fleming is a famous scientist. He was the guy who discovered penicillin. I can still ask Diane to run a search, but I have a feeling maybe that was a fake name. Actually, I know it was because that was not the name of the researcher who published the paper.”
“The guy who invented penicillin, huh?” I laughed humorlessly. “That’s an antibiotic, right?”
“The most common antibiotic,” Bonnie confirmed. “This guy really had delusions of grandeur if he’s comparing himself to the guy who found the cure to hundreds of infectious illnesses.”
“It has to be him, then,” I spat, fury bubbling through my veins. “What’s his real name?”
“Mark Huang,” Bonnie replied. “Former researcher at the Georgia Tech Department of Biomedical Engineering.”
“He’s our guy,” I muttered angrily. “I’m sure of it. Look into him more for us, could you? Give us everything you can: photos, addresses, other possible aliases. Heck, let us know if you find any more crazy papers he wrote. We need to find him.”
“I’ll do that right now,” Bonnie promised, and once again, I heard the sound of rapid-fire typing as she clicked away at the keys. Suddenly, the sound stopped. “Oh, and Ethan? Be careful, okay? This blood sample you sent me… This stuff is dangerous. Please just be careful, okay?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled in response, and then, all of a sudden, I just had to tell her. “Holm’s infected. He was bitten by a perp last night.”
Beside me, Santina’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“I—what?” Bonnie uttered, sounding like she was about to cry. “Ethan, that’s not a funny thing to joke about.”
“I’m not joking,” I replied stiffly. “I wish I was, but I’m not. I’m in the hospital right now, waiting for an update. I wasn’t going to tell you until, well, until I had something to tell. But Diane should probably know.”
“I’ll tell her,” Bonnie quickly offered. “Don’t worry about that, just stick with Holm, okay? And I’m going to work even faster now. I’m going to find this bastard, seriously.”
“Thanks Bonnie.” I chuckled. It was unusual to hear her use language like that, though I supposed if someone could elicit that strong of a reaction, it would be Holm.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Bonnie insisted, and I sorely wished that I could believe her.
27
ETHAN
Holm wasn’t okay.
Santina, the doctor, and I were all standing in a small room just outside the ICU now. The room was painted what I assumed was supposed to be a calming blue, and there was a vase of flowers on the table. I got the feeling that maybe this was a room designed to deliver bad news, a thought that only filled me with dread.
The doctor had finally come to update us a little after my call with Bonnie. Santina immediately went on the offensive, getting right up in his face and demanding to know what the hell had taken so long. Why had we been left to sit here literally all night without a single word of how Holm was doing? The doctor was apologetic and explained that they were only following new emergency protocols. After that, he’d led us over to the ICU, but rather than taking us to see Holm, he’d led us into this tiny little room instead.
“We need to be extremely careful with anyone who has potentially been infected,” the doctor explained calmly as Santina paced as much as she could in the small space. “With how fast this disease is progressing, we can’t take any risks. We needed to keep him isolated for a while to observe him.”
“And?” I asked impatiently. “How is he? Can we see him?”
The doctor opened his mouth and then closed it again. And that, honestly, was all I needed to know that Holm wasn’t okay. The doctor’s hesitation spoke volumes, and I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up.
“Agent Holm began to exhibit symptoms about three hours ago,” he explained directly. That much, at least, I was grateful for. It would have been far worse if he’d beaten around the bush and tried to sugarcoat it.
“What kind of symptoms?” I asked, barely able to get the words out. It felt like my heart and lungs had been placed in a vise. My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t get enough air. As much as I didn’t want to picture it, the image of Holm lashing out at the doctors flashed through my mind: crazed, eyes blank, and teeth bared as he punched and scratched and tried to bite.
“Confusion, brain fog, memory loss,” the doctor listed. “And about an hour after the initial onset of symptoms, Agent Holm became unresponsive. He’s alive. Please don’t misunderstand. He just—”
“He’s not there anymore,” I murmured. “I know. We’ve seen it.” I was unsure whether I should feel relieved that Holm had gone the catatonic route. At least he wasn’t trying to bite the doctors, but I didn’t want to see him lying there like he was brain dead, either.
“His vitals are stable, for now,” the doctor explained calmly. “But that could change, as I’m sure you know.”
“So what are you trying to say!?” Santina suddenly exclaimed, her fiery eyes boring holes into the doctor as she waved her arms expressively. “You want us to get ready to say goodbye or something? No, screw that. You need to do something. People have survived this. Petra’s in this hospital right now! Agent Holm can survive this!” She was practically yelling, and though a part of me didn’t think it was fair that she was taking it out on the doctor, another part felt glad that she was so vehemently sticking up for Holm.
“Yes,” the doctor replied, to my immense surprise. “I believe he can, as well. That’s what I need to speak to you about.” He turned to look at me specifically. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Miss Petra is making a remarkable recovery. Nobody believed she would survive, and yet she has. And she’s getting stronger every day. She’s proof that this disease can be survived, under the right conditions.”
“Okay, so does Holm meet those conditions?” I asked anxiously, crossing my arms.
“Well, we want to try to create those conditions,” the doctor replied. “Now, what I’m proposing is entirely experimental. It has to be since no one has ever encountered a strain of rabies like this before. What I’m proposing is that we place Agent Holm in a medically induced coma.”
“What?” I stared at him in horror. “Will that help him?”
“It might,” the doctor replied vaguely. “Like I said, this is experimental. Our hope is that by doing this, by effectively shutting down his brain, we can give Agent Holm the best shot of fighting this off while incurring the least amount of damage possible.”
“Well, then do it!” Santina exclaimed. “If it’ll help him, then hurry up and get started!”
“Before we do,” the doctor replied, “I need you to understand that there are no guarantees here. I can promise you that we will try everything in our power to help Agent Holm through this, but this might not work. It’s a risk, but a risk that I think we really should consider. The alternative is to just continue with the rabies vaccine series and, well, hope for the best.”
“And you need my permission?” I asked. “Because I’m his emergency contact?”
The doctor nodded.
“Do it, then,” I insisted. “Just sitting around ‘hoping for the best’ won’t help him. If you think putting him under will help even a little, then do it.”
“I’ll go and get the process started, then,” the doctor replied. “You’ll have to sign a few forms—”
“I’ll do that later,” I snapped, more harshly than I’d meant to. “You said it’s been three hours since he started showing symptoms, right? So we’re losing time. Go and do what you have to do.”
“Okay,” the doctor nodded calmly. “I’ll have someone come and speak with you about that later, then.” He turned and hurried off somewhere, leaving me and Santina alone in the small waiting room. I supposed that since they would be starting another procedure now, we wouldn’t get to see Holm after all.
“You okay?” Santina asked me, her voice soft as she reached over to touch my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I muttered as I walked over to one of the chairs in the small room.
Santina and I had both been too wound up to sit while we spoke with the doctor, but now I suddenly felt like I might collapse.
“We were mean to that doctor,” I pointed out. “We both snapped at him.”
“He deserved it,” Santina sniffed as she sank into a chair beside me. “I’ll be nice to him when he brings us good news about Agent Holm.”
“That isn’t very nice.” I laughed under my breath as I leaned forward to rest my head in my hands.
“I’m not a very nice person,” Santina shot back as she gently stroked my back and shoulder.
“That’s not true,” I replied as I looked up and offered her a small smile. She smiled back, and the two of us sat in comfortable silence for the first time in hours.
“Okay,” I spoke up again after allowing myself to enjoy a moment of peace. “We need to get to work. We’ve got a name for our perp now, a real one, and his profession. Well, former profession, anyway.”
“Right,” Santina agreed as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “So, what do you plan to do?”
“First, let’s do a search on Mark Huang,” I replied as I looked up the name on my phone.
It was easy enough to find him. His picture still came up under the Google Images tab, dressed in a white coat. The image matched what Bonnie had sent and what I remembered of him, though he looked a lot less gray and frazzled in the online photo. A tiny blurb of text beneath the image referenced his job as a researcher at the university, though when I clicked it, I was brought to a broken webpage.
“They must have deleted his staff page after they gave him the boot,” I murmured.
Beside me, Santina pulled out her own phone and started doing research as well. I clicked back to the image, which was still visible even though the original page was gone.
“This is definitely the guy I saw on the boat,” I confirmed. “He looks a little younger here, and less crazy, but it’s definitely him.”
I clicked back to the university’s official website and scrolled down to the bottom for their contact information. Bonnie had said that they’d been reluctant to talk about him, but maybe I should try, anyway. I was nothing if not persuasive, and right now, we needed to dig up every bit of information we could find. I punched in the number listed for the Biomedical Engineering school’s main office and held the phone up to my ear.
“Good afternoon, this is Pam,” a warm, female voice answered. “How can I help you?”
“Hi, Pam,” I replied. “This is Agent Ethan Marston, with MBLIS. I’m not sure who I’m supposed to speak to about this, but I have some questions about a former researcher there.”
“Who are you looking for?” she asked.
“A man named Mark Huang,” I replied, and I could almost feel her mood change, even though we were speaking over the phone.
